German botanist and palaeontologist (1815-1891).
Joseph August Schenk (17 April 1815, in Hallein – 30 March 1891, in Leipzig) was an Austrian-born, German botanist and paleobotanist. In 1837, he obtained his medical doctorate from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, followed by studies in botany at the University of Erlangen, the Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin, and the University of Vienna. In 1840, he earned his PhD in botany at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and during the following year, received his habilitation for botany with the dissertation "Genera et species Cyperacearum, quae in regno Graeco, archipelago